Dawn waited a few day for the post-Christmas sales to die down, and then she went back to the mall by herself. She hadn’t been able to shake the memory of seeing a faerie there, even though it might have just been a trick of the light. She didn’t want to go with a friend because of how weird and uncomfortable she’d felt talking to Steph, and because if she decided to take off after the faerie, she didn’t want to have to explain to someone else what she was doing.

Edie waited a couple of days before asking her mother about her great-grandmother. She didn’t want to make it sound as though she was completely obsessed with her, especially if her parents had discussed the conversation she’d had with her dad in the car (and they probably had).

Three days after the party, it was December 26 and Corrie was back at work. She had half not wanted to come today, since she would have liked to be hitting some of the after-Christmas sales and maybe getting some cool stuff, but she had almost no money left over from the summer anyway. She was even more inclined than usual to be cheery, pleasant, and polite as she took people’s orders, brought the food out, and checked to make sure everything was all right.

Waiting for everyone else to eat the ham made Dawn hungry, even though she’d eaten earlier. She picked at the cranberry sauce, but the crescent rolls had already been eaten and there was nothing to put it on, so she was happy when the pies came out. It turned out that the blueberry one her parents had made wasn’t the only one—Pru had also bought a pumpkin pie and some vanilla ice cream. Dawn took some of each.

Edie might not have found anything useful, but at least she had some books to entertain herself with. And she had some things to research on the internet. Maybe if there was more information out there, she would find it. She knew that if she wanted to tell people about her experiences with faeries, she’d rather put it on the internet than in a book.

Corrie dropped Etta off at her house a few minutes later; her cousin was obviously feeling better after just that little time away from the crowd. Corrie waited for her to get her door unlocked, and they waved at each other before Corrie drove away.

The party had gotten a little rowdier by the time she got back. Someone had put on some music and the volume of talk had risen to match it. Corrie suspected there was some alcohol out now.

They didn’t have to wait too much longer. The first to arrive was Dawn’s aunt Sandy with her husband Travis and her two kids, Mia and Shane. They were several years younger than Dawn; Sandy was her dad and Pru’s younger sister. Dawn had always gotten along with her cousins, though, so she was happy to see them.

After another hour of looking through the books on faerie folklore, Edie’s head was pounding, and she gave up—at least for the time being. She decided it was time to walk through the rest of the library and actually look for books to check out. Her dad would be confused if she didn’t find any (and she would also be disappointed, since she really did need some books to read).

After much discussion and the arrival of three more people, they ended up ordering three pizzas—one extra cheese, one pepperoni, and one with onions and sausage. Corrie, remembering ordering pizza at college, made a point of asking if anyone was vegetarian or vegan—none of the people she knew from high school had been, but these things did change. She was even considering going vegetarian herself. She was going to have to talk to Dawn about it one of these days.

Dawn spent an hour or so that evening trying to make more jewels, but none of them seemed to come out right. Eventually she gave up and uncreated all the jewels she’d made. She didn’t want anyone finding them and getting suspicious of where she’d gotten them from, and they probably wouldn’t be worth anything if she tried to have them appraised. It would be clear that they were manmade, and badly at that.

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